ApriAlpha: Toshiba's New Personal Robot

Toshiba has announced
a new personal robot called the ApriAlpha. The 9.5 Kg
spherical robot has 3 wheels and sports a CCD camera complete with face
recognition. It also has a speech synthesizer, speech recognition, and
speech localization - that last feature allows it to come to you when
you call. And to stay in touch, it can use 802.11b or Bluetooth
to link with your LAN. An IR receiver lets you command it with a
conventional remote control and it can also send photos taken with its
camera to cell phones. It uses ultrasonic sensors for obstacle
avoidance. The robot is powered by a conventional battery but can
optionally use Toshiba's recently introduced methanol
fuel cell.